It's not happening because it would be an economic basket case.
Technically possible without too much fuss, but it's a case of why on earth would you. It's just one of those schemes that everything possible conspires to make it as difficult as possible to get a positive business case.
Reopening railway lines are very expensive, and this one would be a lot of capital to serve a relatively small number of people.
In order to get the best use out of the line, you'd really need to connect it into Edinburgh without changing, to give you access to the airport and points south. But that means you have to run trains down through Fife to serve the line. And suddenly it you're looking at an ongoing cost of 3/4 extra units and train crew to serve five miles of track and a grand total of let's say 220k journeys a year?
Or you could built a triangle at Leuchars and have all trains serving St Andrews reverse back out and continue to Dundee, or vice versa, but then you're looking at services between Edinburgh and Dundee taking an extra 30 minutes in each direction, and have to think about timetabling over a presumably single track section, or provide passing opportunities.
Or you could spend a couple of million making an improved interchange at Leuchars station, and pay Stagecoach to always have a bus ready to meet the trains.
So firstly, let us be very clear about what is being proposed here. What problem are we trying to solve?
This is a proposal that suggests that St. Andrew's could be better served by a railway line. It's existing transport provision is inadequate, and could be improved, with the provision of such a railway line.
Great, now let's examine the proposal in detail, with what is there now, what the potential demand might be, whether or not trains are the right answer to such a question. First, we go through facts as they are now.
Infrastructure
The railway line closed in the 60s, and there's virtually nothing left of the line, beyond the formation itself. The land that once made up the railway line is currently approximately 2km of golf course, 3.5km of open ground, including farm land, and 2km of built up area, most of which is obliterated or under buildings and roads. Three bridges are missing, including the 100m long viaduct at Guardbridge, and one in the town centre, which, if rebuilt today, would not be high enough for the full sized coaches, double decker buses, and lorries which serve the town. Reopening the old alignment would be impossible, and an entirely new alignment would be necessary, totalling approximately 6-8km.
Guardbridge would not be big enough to justify a station, so you're looking at a single station, presumably at the end of a single line section. Such a section would have a maximum speed of 40-50mph, simply due to geography and length.
As I said in my last message regarding this subject:
"In order to get the best use out of the line, you'd really need to connect it into Edinburgh without changing, to give you access to the airport and points south. But that means you have to run trains down through Fife to serve the line."
A shuttle will never wash its face. A shuttle would necessarily cost more than a bus, to wash its face. It would take, on a slow trackbed, about 10 minutes from end to end, or about 50% of the bus journey time. Such a service would probably amount to taking about two thirds of the bus passengers transferring at Leuchars, as well as about the same again in new custom to the railway, attracted by ease of through ticketing and the convenience of a train.
If you didn't build some kind of VLR shuttle, or a stub branch connecting at Leuchars station, then you'd have to build a lot more. At a very conservative estimate, land purchase, civils and signalling would cost £55m per single kilometre of this new route. Add a base extra cost of £80m for the station and junction with the existing railway, plus another £80m again if you wanted a triangular junction, and suddenly that's £600m for this line.
And then you have to serve the thing:
"And suddenly it you're looking at an ongoing cost of 3/4 extra units and train crew to serve five miles of track and a grand total of let's say 220k journeys a year? Or you could built a triangle at Leuchars and have all trains serving St Andrews reverse back out and continue to Dundee, or vice versa, but then you're looking at services between Edinburgh and Dundee taking an extra 30 minutes in each direction, and have to think about timetabling over a presumably single track section, or provide passing opportunities."
Any way you slice this, that's a material cost of at least two extra full-day unit diagrams, as well as either 25 minute longer journey times between Edinburgh and Dundee, two extra paths per hour into Edinburgh/Dundee, or both.
People
St. Andrew's is a reasonably wealthy town. Of the seventeen data zones in the town proper, all bar one are in the top half of income distributions of zones in Scotland, and all bar three are in the top half for geographic access of zones. that means that the town is reasonably well connected, and crucially, car ownership is high. The university, and golf, bring in a lot of annual visitors, the average wealth of such visitors will be high; almost three quarters of golfers visiting the Old Links are from overseas, and the university is self titled as "one of the most international in the UK."
Given the proportions of tourists visiting for golf, the university, or just for a visit, its also reasonable to make some assumptions about the type of person who visits, and whether they would or wouldn't be willing to use a train.
Its reasonable to assume that a majority of visitors to the town will be there for one, two or three days. Of the visitors there for one day, the majority will be driving, or on a tour bus, and will stop in the town for less than eight hours. Of those for two or three days, the majority will be bringing things with them, be it clothes for a short visit, or golfing equipment. Given the origin distribution of visitors to St. Andrew's, its reasonable to assume that most visitors are first coming from either Edinburgh, London, or an airport; if the latter, most likely Edinburgh, Heathrow, or Gatwick. There is a high degree of public transport accessibility to St. Andrew's anyway. There are, as
@tbtc so wonderfully put it, about halfway through me writing this, a plethora of bus routes, express and local, to Dundee, Edinburgh, Fife, Dundee, and, crucially, Leuchars station. This proves both a demand and desire for services to these places.
Students would be willing to take the train; most would take either two, or four, journeys to and from home in a year, and will have friends and family visiting, or will go to visit friends and family themselves. That's about 10,000 students. The student population, and the population of the town itself, is what we would call our
static capture; those people for whom reopening a railway is a net benefit, and for whom the only real question is the cost of a ticket once its built. Our static capture totals about 25,000 people living in or around the town, at least on a semi-permanent basis. Some of these will be seasonal, but we'll ignore that, because there are a decent amount of seasonal workers in the town to make up for that. In terms of journeys, if we assume that each person uses the train once per month on average, that's 300k journeys per year.
Of the visitors from the UK, and from overseas, who are visiting St. Andrew's as part of a longer trip, some could be persuaded to use the train. Day trippers from Edinburgh, or people doing a day out for a game of golf, could definitely be persuaded. That's our
semi-static capture; the number of people who could be enticed to use a train, if it was comparable journey times with driving the full distance, and a decent cost. Basically, this is the category of retired day-trippers, student backpackers, and golfers going for a few days. These could be persuaded to take the train, but most will not. Let's call this category a nice round 500,000 people a year, which gives us lets say 150k single journeys a year.
Fluid flows are those for whom reopening the railway is a net negative. In this category, that number is very, very small, and we will discount it here.
There are some people you'll never capture. Wealthy visitors with heavy luggage will continue to be driven around. Visitors driving a long way to St. Andrew's from inside the UK or in Europe will continue to drive. Day-trippers on a tour bus will continue to take a tour bus, particularly those visiting on cruise ships docked in the Firth, or on week long excursions around Scotland.
Collectively, that's a population that could be captured that amounts to that of a small town, with a decent tourism trade. The population of St. Andrew's is, on average affluent, employed, has high mobility through existing access to cars and public transport, and is highly educated.
I roughly estimated the number of potential journeys from a St. Andrew's station at 220k per year. This feasibility study would have used three estimates; best case, worst case, and best
guess scenarios. For this feasibility study to have come back with the number it did, I can say that 220k pax/year estimate was about half the estimate they used for their best guess. Lets say 450k per year instead.
Business Case
Serving a total of 450k journeys per year, for all that cost, seems a little bit mad.
You just don't tick any boxes spending all that money for St. Andrew's. Its a wealthy place, with a decent tourism industry, connections are easy onto trains at Leuchars, and a lot of people already do that.
Its not the same as Levenmouth, which was completely deprived, lacking economic integration and public transport access. The formation has gone completely, its not in railway ownership, and its in one of the most expensive corners of the county. Even the simple problem of
where to put the station is contentious; the best spots would be under the golf course, under the university, or in land owned by one or the other. Its not the same as Tweedbank or Leven in that there's no service you could extend; if there was a 1tbh suburban service terminating at Leuchars, then absolutely, it would be easy.
Its a a line which perhaps shouldn't have closed, but now that it has, its just not worth it.
www.transport.gov.scot
